Favre Comeback Rumors, What Happened?

So was the Los Angeles Times article on a potential Favre comeback just made up? That’s what some guy is suggesting in this post at the Frozen Tundra Blog. This is — how to be delicate about it — naive. Aside from a handful of fabulists like Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass, reporters just don’t make stuff up.

So what happened?

Consider this, from the original article: “According to NFL sources, Favre’s agent has quietly inquired with teams about their interest in trading for the three-time NFL most valuable player. The sources did not indicate whether Favre knew of the inquiries.”

And this, from Peter King’s article yesterday. “When the news broke, Cook called Favre and told him people were sniffing around about Favre coming out of retirement, and Favre was surprised to hear that the story had gotten legs.”

So one thing seems clear. Favre’s agent had discussions with with “people” about the possibility of Brett Favre coming out of retirement. If you believe Cook, teams were sniffing around about Favre and, as King implies, Cook was just a passive player. For what it’s worth, I don’t believe Cook. My guess — and it’s just a guess — is that Cook did, in fact, make some calls to see whether teams might be interested in Favre. It seems from reading all of the articles on the issue that Favre did not know about any of this.

We’ll hear a lot more of these kinds of stories before the seasons starts.